Leonard Nimoy
1931-2015
Before this blog, before I left school, before my first kiss, before I even loved Batman, there was Star Trek.
Some of my earliest memories are of my mother and I (back in
the good ol’ days before she remarried) watching reruns of The Next
Generation. I know it wasn’t necessarily
her first pick of shows to watch, but I was awestruck. And she saw that. I have vivid memories of spring and summer
time Saturday evenings watching the exploits the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise
and marveling at the technology on the screen.
When Steve Jobs died in October 2011, I remember instantly thinking that
the world had lost, not only a genius, but the man that brought us closest to
Star Trek becoming a reality.
The vision Star Trek and of Gene Roddenberry, creator of the
franchise, was of a better life than what mankind had at the time (and today,
if I’m being honest). No war, no poverty,
no hate. One of the more overt messages
Star Trek transmitted was against racial prejudice. Lieutenant Uhura, portrayed by Nichelle
Nichols, was one of the first prominent black actors on television. In the episode "Let That Be Your Last
Battlefield", Captain Kirk and the crew encounter a race of people locked
in a constant civil war. Despite the
crew not understanding the basis for their hated, the aliens find their
difference to be obvious: half of their race has white skin tone on the left
side of their face and the right half is black, whereas the other half of the
race has the reverse (black on the left, white on the right). This lamp-shaded the idiocy of the racial
divides of the United States in 2015 1969.
Spock, one of my favorite characters since first being
introduced to the character over twenty years ago, is probably the most iconic
and influential characters in the entirety of the franchise. The man behind the ears, Leonard Nimoy, was
the reason for that. Appearing in the
entirety of the original Star Trek series, six films dedicated to that cast (directing
two of them), two episodes of The Next Generation, and bridging the gap between
the original crew to the crew of the reboot films with Zachary Quinto taking
over as the character of Spock, Leonard Nimoy was referred to as the “conscious
of Star Trek’. I had the pleasure of
meeting Mr. Nimoy at a convention years ago.
It was brief, but I knew instantly why so many loved him.
He was an actor. He
was a director. He was a writer. He was a poet. He was a mentor. He was a husband. He was a brother.
He was a father.
He was a friend.
He was a good man.
I'll leave you with his final message to the world. Great words to live by.
Live long and prosper.
-Josh
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